Sketching to Capture the Mood and Moment

I know I'm behind in my posts!  But spring is a busy time as the weather turns nicer I find myself sketching outside more and more. The daily changes in nature keep me sketching fast and furious to keep up with Mother Nature!

 I wanted to share this particular sketch because it's a perfect example of how a daily practice of sketching can capture and preserve so many things that are very important in your life, and important to you as a person.

Even though my kids are grown, holidays are still busy and sometimes stressful days for me. This sketch captures the peaceful, quiet moments early on Easter morning when my husband and I had a few precious moments to enjoy some special seasonal foods and reflect on the meaning and joy of the day before all the hustle and bustle began.

I tried to record for myself the colors, the mood, the feeling, the atmosphere and memories that Easter conjures up for me. While it may not be as powerful for you, when I see this sketch is holds a symbolic treasure trove of thoughts, ideas and feelings for me.

This kind of personal, recording of inner experiences is one of the great benefits and pleasures of keeping a sketchbook.

Sketching Outdoors in March

It's March. Spring has sprung, and the peeper frogs are peeping. Today it snowed, again. Sigh. On the bright side the snow has now melted and it's just damp and chilly.  It feels like Mother Nature is playing an April Fool's joke a day early.

I'm really, really looking forward to sketching outside in weather that is pleasant and doesn't make my fingers hurt!

A few days ago the temperatures pushed up into the low forties and I couldn't stand it any longer. I bundled up and went out to sketch.. The first two on the left hand page were done form the car. by the time I was done with those it seemed like it would be warm enough to go outside. Well sort of.

Realize of course that I'm wearing a couple of layers and a down coat! One thing I like are fingerless gloves with a mitten  part that you can flip over your fingers.

The sketches on the right hand page were done outside. By the time I was done I was chilled to the bone!

However, it was really worth it! It felt so good to be outside, in nature immersed in my subject. I was especially happy when a pair of Mallard ducks flew in and spent about 20 min. feeding in the marsh. The red wing blackbirds were calling back and forth and it felt very alive and sounded like spring even if the temperatures didn't feel much like it.

I'm working right now in a Stillman & Birn 7x10 Delta wire bound sketchbook. The ivory paper is a nice change from white, and it's a good size for this time of year when I'm sketching indoors a lot and when it's too cold outdoors to be sketching for long periods of time. I usually use smaller sketchbooks during the winter months because they fill up fast and the sense of accomplishment of filling a book and the excitement of beginning a new one helps keep me inspired through the cold bleak months.

I'm working with the Pentel Pocket Brush Pen learning to use it and experimenting to see what it can do. It creates a very bold line, which is very black and I definitely must take that into consideration. The marks this pen makes are not just delicate outlines or guide lines for filling in with watercolors, they have lots of visual weight and presence and therefore are an integral part of the design.

This was my favorite of the four sketches. I think that the pen creates a look reminiscent of a hand colored wood bock print.

It's March and while the calendar says it's spring (frankly, I prefer the old Celtic calendar and the way the seasons of the year are broken up in that system. Right now we would still be in Imbolc, Feb.-Mar. -Apr. a winter/spring transition time during which lambs are born and trees just begin to bud. The next season is Beltane beginning May 1st,( and encompassing June and July,) which is when the weather actually begins to feel like spring here in New England, after which we quickly move into summer). But I digress.

The task at hand for sketching this season is using a palette of colors that will capture the subdued and fairly neutral hues of the season without resulting in a gray, drab sketch. To that end I'm using this.......

A special little watercolor kit I made form this really cute mint tin! (If you want to know how to make a kit form a mint tin click HERE for the resource page and scroll down to see the step by step instructions) It contains just four colors and is known as the Zorn Palette. Anders Zorn was a Swedish artist of the 19thC who was known for using this palette in many of his paintings to great effect.

                                                                                                 This is a self portrait of Zorn at showing his palette. Below that  is a close up of the palette in the painting.

This limited palette of colors is basically a version of the three primaries with black standing in for blue. Against the warmth of the vermillion and yellow ochre the grays made from black and white easily fool the eye into seeing blue.

My kit is made with watercolors and I suppose you could eliminate the white paint but I very much like using titanium white watercolor. Turner, Constable, Sargent, Homer....all the great watercolorists of the 19th century used white, and since I love their works I emulate their use of white.

This limited, earthy, full bodied palette of colors works very well for painting the in between seasons of late fall into winter and late winter into very early spring.

Zorn used this palette in a great deal of his figure work, especially nudes, so this would also work very well for a life drawing class.

Limited palettes are very helpful for producing color harmonies and avoiding muddy passages. They also help you create unique and expressive color combinations since you;re sometimes unable to paint exactly what you see and need to use a stand in color. Try it sometime and I think you'll be surprised how much you ca do with 3 or 4 colors and how beautiful the results can be.

Sketching a Birthday

Click on the image to see it larger

Today was my birthday!  I'm going to share with you one reason why sketching is such a wonderful thing. I spent some time this afternoon sketching some of the lovely things I got for my birthday.

Since I'm a lifelong gardener and my birthday falls at the very beginning of spring my mom almost always gets me flowers.

This year, a beautiful flat of violas. The variety is Marina for their lovely sea blue color. I prefer violas to pansies (though I love them too!). The petite size and small, squinty "faces" on violas charms my heart. Also since I adore fresh salad greens grown organically at home some Romaine lettuce and curly Simpson Elite came along with the violas.

My birthday also falls somewhere in the neighborhood of Easter so a beautiful bees wax candle shaped like an egg, was my gift to me! I picked it up at the museum today, I made a little trip there for inspiration on my birthday.

The cookies from my favorite bakery and the elegant little glass tea pot, which holds tea for one or two along with one of my favorite teas, 10 years Pu'er, Huang Gong Shou from my husband (who also cooked a marvelous dinner and ordered a double fudge cake from my favorite bakery <3).

Sketching is so marvelous because not only did these lovely gifts delight me I had the pleasure of sketching them. Taking time to really look at them, study them, get to know them and absorb their special qualities. Some, like the cookies will be gone by tomorrow(!) others like the violas and lettuce will last for a season, the tea pot will likely be with me for a long time. BUT I will always have the pages in my sketchbook,and a little journal entry that will  bring me back to this day with such clarity and vivid memory that I will never lose it.

Click on the image to see it larger

Here's something else I did on my birthday! Sketched form the car since it was too windy and chilly to sit outside.

I'm still trying to figure out how best to use the Pilot Pocket Brush Pen.

I've seen other people use this to great advantage, and it intrigues me.  It creates a very bold mark. Which quite frankly scares me!

I'm used to my sketches being fluid, and more delicate, refined in a scribbly, free sort of way. I think fountain pen and fine point markers lend a certain elegance to my work.

However, the expressive possibilities of this pen excite me. It's brush point is extremely responsive to pressure, more so than the Faber-Castell Pitt Artist Brush Tip pens, or any other brush tip pen I've used. I actually think this brush tip is spring-ier than even a real Chinese brush, the kind used for Sumi-e.

The ink is fade proof, permanent, and waterproof (give it a minute to dry) and very black. The marks (lines) can be very fine and delicate but since I'm rather heavy handed I'll need to work on control. Applying any pressure and holding the brush at different angles produces all kinds of expressive marks. They are BOLD Marks! Which produces a sketch of a different quality than I'm used to seeing come from my hand.

Click on the image to see it larger

I can't decide if the bold sketches made with this pen are "me" or not. I think they might be but I'll need more time to experiment and get comfortable with it before I know for sure.

New tools and materials are always exciting and help us stretch and grow. Making art is an adventure, and that makes me happy!

Foodie Sketches

Foodie sketches make me happy. Here, at last, is justification for needing to go to a bakery, cafe, or adorable restaurant. It's also an excellent reason to order dessert. Clearly, you need to do this for sketching practice.

Beyond the fact that it's a reason to enjoy some yummy treats, sketching food is enormously fun. The colors, shapes and textures of food give you ample opportunity to use line, color, and a a variety of materials.

This sketch was made using a fine point black Sharpie marker and some quick watercolor washes. Notice the white gel pen used to create the glossy shine on the drizzle of chocolate sauce. Works every time to create the illusion of shiny surfaces, that's why I always keep a white pen in my sketch kit.



Sketching your meal at a restaurant is also great if you're eating alone and need something to do. I will warn you that it's usually a conversation starter and you're likely to have a few admirers, unless you're somewhere very crowded with people coming and going too busy to notice what you're doing.

This sketch of a lunch with my daughter at the Olive Garden restaurant ended up being photographed by the staff so they can print it, frame it and hang it up in the restaurant! That's why I hastily put my name and website at the bottom. Happy stuff like that happens when you're sketching in public.

Sketching at a restaurant of course means that you'll need whomever your eating with to be tolerant of your crazy need to sketch your food.  My family is used to it by now. If you go out to eat with fellow sketchers that's  perfect and usually a really fun time!


Of course sometimes you don't want to be bothered with on lookers or even bothered to get out of your jammies or yoga pants and get dressed to actually go to a restaurant.

In which case you can sketch food at home!

Here's a fast scribbly sketch of breakfast right in my own kitchen.

A word about fast, and  fast food sketches. No pun intended ;-D  First, usually I'm hungry! Second, often there's a non-sketcher with me and I don't want to drive them entirely crazy making them wait to eat until I'm done sketching. Third, there are so many complexities to food sketches, cups and plates with ellipses, the shape of spoons and forks etc. that if I slow down I'll get all hung up on getting those drawn "perfectly" and that will take far to long and ruin the spontaneity of the sketch. Occasionally, if I have the time and the main object is something like a tea pot I might sketch in pencil first, but usually I just take a deep breath and dive in using a pen and focusing on the contours of things. 

Sometimes with this approach the placement of things gets messed up. If that happens I just continue on filling the page and creating a montage. Better for a sketch to be pleasingly inaccurate than annoyingly perfect!

Drink & Draw

Drink & Draw

Last night I went to the Slater Memorial Museum in  Norwich, CT for a Drink & Draw event. These events are becoming more and more popular everywhere it seems! The concept is pretty simple, a gathering that is both a social event and an opportunity to flex your creative muscles.

We had a nice selection of wines to choose from, received a special museum wine glass to take home and enjoyed cheese and crackers and fresh fruit. About 30 minutes of socializing and meeting fellow artists and then into the museum to sketch.

The museum provided folding stools, drawing boards, clips, paper, pencils and erasers or you could bring your own materials.

Sketching Classical Sculpture

Above you see our venue. The museum was founded by William Slater in memory of his father John Fox Slater, a textile tycoon in the 19th century.

This snippet form a NY Times article by Bill Ryan published September 6, 1992 explains how the amazing collection of classical sculpture came to be...

" Mr. Slater hired an expert in antiquities, Edward Robinson of the Boston Museum of Fine Arts, who went to Europe and visited leading museums to obtain reproductions of their best pieces. It was done by covering the artworks with plaster and then removing the plaster very carefully. Robinson was eminently successful. From Rome came copies of the "Discus Thrower" and Michelangelo's Pieta as well as the "Dying Gaul." From Florence came David. From the Louvre in Paris came Aphrodite, or "Venus de Milo" as she was commonly known. From the Museum at Olympia in Athens came Nike of Paionios.
When the Slater Museum was dedicated in 1888, it contained nearly 150 plaster duplicates of the world's best examples of creativity in stone and bronze."

In the article there's also the curious story of why fig leaves were added to so many of the sculptures and what the reaction was from the art world back in Victorian times. Read the article it might surprise you! 

Pencil, Pen and Watercolor Washes

When sketching such monumental sculptures one feels obligated to attain some sense of the proportions and beauty of the originals so I sketched in with pencil first just to make sure I was at least capturing the essential characteristics and form of each piece. When I was satisfied with that, I used a fountain pen with Noodler's Lexington Gray ink to ink over the lightly sketched pencil lines and then used some Maimeri Blu watercolors to add some washes and bring to life their warm, neutral patinas and the wonderful rich brick red wall color.

All in all an incredibly fun and happy way to spend a Friday evening.

Sketching Spring and Nature's Wisdom

Part of the happiness (for me) that comes from keeping a sketchbook is having moments in a day when I can focus on something beautiful for a little while and leave what's weighing down my mind behind.

Yesterday was the first day of SPRING!!  And not a moment too soon! We've had so much snow and bitter cold temperatures this long winter that nothing is poking through the still partially frozen ground yet. These two very traditional spring flowers, daffodils and hyacinths, came from the garden center. I love the little rustic baskets woven from grape vine.

Spring is a time of renewal and hope. Like the land in New England this spring I would like some renewal and hope in my heart.  It's been a difficult week placing my elderly mom in an assisted living/memory care facility. Those of you who have gone through this need no explanation.

Keeping a sketchbook makes me notice things. What I've noticed these past two weeks is that even though it is still very wintery out, Mother Nature is moving ahead with plans for spring. Robins are out of the underbrush and on the ground, the red wing blackbirds are back in the marsh, the blue birds are checking out nest boxes, and today the gnats are swarming.

This tells me that even though things look bleak and cold all around, it's important to realize that they will pass and to continue to makes plans for happier, better times. Isn't nature wise? Isn't keeping a sketchbook journal a wonderful thing that helps you see through the difficulties to life's beauties?

Today's page was created using a TWSBI mini fountain pen with J. Herbin Lie de The ink, Maimeri Blu watercolors, and Faber Castell Pitt Artist Brush Tip Pens. I love those pens because they combine so well with watercolor. They contain pigmented (colored) India ink, do not bleed through your paper, and are transparent, letting you layer glazes of color just like you do with watercolors. 

Happy sketching!

Creating Backgrounds on your Sketchbook Pages

Winter Blues

This is a recent sketch (Feb. 26, 2014) that shows what happens when the winter drags on and I'm starved for green and sketching time outdoors. I start to do all kinds of crazy things in my sketchbook.

Sketching nature is my favorite subject, but as the winter drags on and the snow is deep and the temperatures barely pushing above twenty  I'm forced to sketch the same views from my windows or find something else to sketch.

That's actually a pretty good thing because when I look back at my sketchbooks from years past I find that my February sketchbooks are often the most interesting and creative. Happily, adversity begets creativity.

So here's whats happening in this sketch. I'm working in a 7x10 Stillman & Birn spiral bound Delta series sketchbook.  It has lovely heavy weight 180 lb paper, ivory in tint and similar to cold pressed watercolor paper in texture.

 When I'm feeling cooped up or just plain un-creative and need to add some pizazz to get me going I will create backgrounds on my sketchbook pages to work on top of.

How to Create a Background for your Sketchbook Pages

I've tried a bunch of different things and like using Golden High Flow acrylics best. This is the High Flow not the Fluid acrylic. The high flow is ink like, very thin. Even so I tend to thin it down more so that the paint is very transparent and the grain of the paper shows through. Here, because it's still the dead of winter and I'm desperately in need of some sparkle I've thinned the high flow with Utrecht's  Illuminating Medium 
which along with thinning down the paint add just a subtle bit of shimmer to the paint. I squirt the paint and medium out on a plastic palette and use a brayer (like you'd use for printmaking) to roll the paint onto the page. That's a fun way to do things because you can move the paint directionally, and have areas that over lap and create layers and textures. Don't stress about this part, if there are darker blotches created when the brayer first hits the paper or if the paint runs out and the application get raggedy that's all good stuff, it's what will make the page interesting and visually rich.

Working  over the Background

If you intend to use watercolor or gouache over the background be sure to keep the layer of high flow thin or you'll have a problem getting the watercolors to adhere, they may just bead up on the acrylic. If that happens then I'd suggest that you switch to Faber-Castel brush tip pens, they're pigment india ink, transparent and look a lot like watercolors. I used both in this sketch.

Stencils

Stencils are fun and make me happy. Sometimes I make my own but the one I used here (which is supposed to depict cracked glass but I think looks like a spider's web) I bought.

White over Dark in your Sketchbook

Using white over a dark area always brings a "pop" to a sketchbook page and I try to incorporate that as much as possible. White markers can be hard to come by and some work better than others. The whites in the sketch were created Using Daniel Smith titanium white watercolor and Uni-Ball Signo White pen.

Sketching Inspiration

Nature is glorious and inspires me. Snow is wonderful, the first couple of times in the winter, but frozen snow and freezing temps lose their appeal after a couple of months. The great thing about keeping a sketchbook journal is that it helps you find inspiration in every day things. The play of thin wintery light through the empty wine bottles and the little plant silhouetted on the studio window sill, plus  the incorporation of the endless snow outside and the cobwebs which perfectly captured the cobwebs in my mind at the end of this long, long winter helped me create a page that captures the essence of this moment in time and that makes me happy!